That was what he wanted to do--to take her back into the life which was so empty and incomplete without her--to have her again to share his interests and to be a partner in his fortunes. Yet for the moment he could not do as she bade him. He was much moved, and was very unready at expressing emotion. He sat in silence, gently caressing her hand. It was she who spoke.
"Of course there"s a lot to say; but don"t let"s say it, John. You"ll know I"m feeling it, and I shall know that about you too. But don"t let"s say it." She broke into a smile again. "I should argue, you know--I always argue! And then---- But if we say nothing about it, perhaps we--well, perhaps we can nearly forget it, and take up the old life where we broke it off. And it wasn"t a bad old life, after all, was it, in spite of the way we both grumbled?"
"My dear old girl!" he murmured.
"I suppose you must be as vulgar as you like to-day!" said Christine, with a dainty lift of her brow and an affected resignation. Then suddenly she turned and kissed him, saying gravely: "I"m grateful, John, and don"t--don"t think there"s anything wrong in being generous."
"I only know I"ve got to have you back with me," he said. "That"s all I know about it anyhow."
"I think it"s enough, then," she whispered softly.
Presently the gates of John"s mouth were loosed, and he began to tell all his news. It was mainly about his business--how it flourished, how he had built up his credit again, of the successes he had won; that as soon as he had paid off his debts--a moment of embarra.s.sment befell him here--they would be as well off as ever they had been; horses could be bought again, the diamonds could reappear, there would be no need to stint Christine of any of the things that she loved. All that he had longed for sympathetic ears to hear in the last months came bubbling out now. And Christine was ready to listen. As he talked and she heard, the old life seemed to revive, the old interests of every day came back, exercised anew their uniting power, and brought with them the old friendship and comradeship. Christine had said that they could "nearly forget." The words had her courage in them; they had her caution too. To forget what had come upon them and between them was impossible--in Christine"s obstinate heart even at this moment hardly desired; but it was possible nearly to forget--at most times so nearly to forget as to relegate the thing to some distant chamber of the heart and not let it count in the commerce and communion of the life which they lived together and which bound them to one another with all its ties. That was the best thing which could be looked for, since the past, being irrevocable in deed, is also not to be forgotten in thought. They were picking up and piecing together the fragments. The ruin here had not been as utter as it had at poor Tom Courtland"s, where the same process was being undertaken; but there had been a crash, and, though the pieces might be joined, there would be marks to show the fracture. Yet even the memory that refused to die brought its good with it. After the ruin came the love which had in the end sought restoration; if the one could not be forgotten, the other would always claim an accompanying remembrance.
From this remembrance there might well emerge an affection deeper, stronger, and more proof against the worries and the friction of common life which in the old days had so often disturbed their peace and interrupted their friendship.
Before dinner Christine found an opportunity to visit Sibylla in her room. Her own brief excitement and agitation had pa.s.sed off; Sibylla seemed the more eager of the two about the event of the day. Christine related it. Her comments on it and on what it meant ran very much in the foregoing vein, but was modified by her usual veneer of irony for which her friend made easy allowance. Sibylla had been prepared for an ecstasy of sympathetic congratulation; but it was evident that though congratulation might be welcomed, ecstasy would be out of place. Neither Christine"s conclusions from the past nor her antic.i.p.ations of the future invited it.
"How reasonable you are, Christine!" sighed Sibylla. "And how immoral!"
she added, with a smile. "You"re not really very sorry about it all, you know. You"re just very glad the trouble is over. And you don"t expect a bit more than it"s quite likely you"ll get! Do you know, you"re very useful to me?"
"My reasonableness or my immorality?"
"One"s an example and the other"s a warning," laughed Sibylla.
"I don"t think I"m immoral. I"ve had an awful lesson, and I intend to profit by it. There"ll be nothing more of that sort, you know."
"Why not?" Sibylla asked, curious to probe her friend"s mind.
"I don"t know. No temptation--being sorry for John--being afraid--being, between ourselves, thirty-five. It all sounds rather mixed, but it results in a good resolution. And as for the future----" She frowned just a little. "Oh, it"ll be all right, and a great deal better than I"ve been thinking lately."
"I must get more like you--not quite like you, but more like you. I must--I must!" Sibylla declared vehemently. "Has being thirty-five a great deal to do with it? Because then I can wait and hope."
"I should think it had a good deal to do with it," admitted Christine dispa.s.sionately. "Oh, well, I needn"t run myself down too much. Really John has a good deal to say to it."
"I"ve Frank too."
"Yes, you have; and you"re in love with your husband, my dear."
"That doesn"t always make it easier."
"At any rate it keeps up one"s interest in the whole affair," smiled Christine.
"You"re happy, anyhow?"
"Happy? Yes, reasonably happy--and I suppose immorally too. At any rate, I"m settled, and that"s really a comfort in its way."
"I don"t know that I care so much about being settled. Perhaps I shall at thirty-five!"
The idea of years making any difference to her moods or her needs seemed rather a new one to Sibylla. Evidently she was holding it in her mind and turning it over in her thoughts.
The idea was with her still as she sat rather silent at the dinner-table that evening. They had a little party, for all the Raymores joined them, and young Mallam was there also, their guest for the night. Christine was very gay and satirical. John watched her with ready admiration, but less ready understanding. The young men were rather noisy, toasting to-morrow"s wedding to the confusion of the bridegroom and the equal confusion of Eva Raymore, to whose not distant destiny both Jeremy"s words and Jeremy"s eyes made references by no means covert. Kate Raymore and her husband looked on with the subdued and tempered happiness which was the outcome of their great sorrow, their triumph over it, and the impending departure of their son, to complete the working out of his atonement. They talked of the Selfords with some irony, of poor Harriet Courtland, of Tom and his children with a sympathetic hopefulness and a touch of amus.e.m.e.nt at the importance their dear old Suzette Bligh was a.s.suming and was, it seemed, to a.s.sume in the household. Sibylla"s own thoughts widened the survey, embracing in it the couple down at Old Mill House--the faithful patient woman whose love made even the ridiculous touching; the broken old man who had given the best of his life in expiation for a brief madness, and now crept home to end his days, asking nothing but peace, hoping at best not to be despised or shunned.
Above in his cot lay her little son, at the other end of the scale, at the beginning of all things; and opposite to her was Grantley himself, unbroken, but not unchanged; obedient to the lessons, but never put out of heart by them; doing violence to what he had held most truly and most preciously himself in order to the search and discovery of something more true and precious still. The idea of the ever-pa.s.sing years and of feelings and fortunes appropriate to each stage of life helped her, but was not enough. There were differences of minds too, of tempers and of views; and every one of them implied a fitting in, perhaps a paring away here or an addition there--a harmonising; these things must be if the system was to work. Reluctantly and gradually her ardent mind, by nature ever either buoyant in the heaven of a.s.sured hope or cast down to the depths of despair, bowed to the middle conclusion, and consented to look through the eyes of wisdom and experience. Happy he who can so look and yet look without bitterness, who can see calamity without despair, and accept partial success without peevishness. There were the hopeless cases. These must be explained, or left unexplained, by what creed or philosophy you chose to hold. There were--surely there were!--the few perfect ones, where there was not even danger nor the need for effort or for guard. Of such she had deemed hers one. It had needed much to open her eyes--much sorrow and wrong in her own life--much sorrow, wrong, and calamity in the lives which pa.s.sed within her view. But her eyes were open now. Yet she took courage--she took courage from Grantley, whose crest was not lowered, though his heart was changed.
So spoke reason, and to it Sibylla bowed. The array of cases, the marshalling of instances--all that the people and the lives about her had represented and typified--their moral was not to be denied. But reason is not the sole governor, nor even the only teacher. It might open her eyes; it might even moderate the arrogance of her demands; it could not change the temper of her heart. She was not even chilled, far less embittered. She went forth to meet life and love as ardently as ever. The change was that she knew more what these things were which she started forth to welcome, and perceived better to what she must attune herself. She would hope and enjoy still. But she asked no more a privilege over her fellows. She could hope as a mortal without immunity from evil, and enjoy as one to whom there is allotted a portion of sorrow--and not of her own only, nor perhaps of her making, nor of her fault, since by her own act and by nature"s will her being was bound up with the being of others, and her happiness or misery, success or failure, lay in the common fortune and the common weal. For any mortal perfect independence is a vain thing fondly imagined--most vain and fond when it is demanded together with all for which any approach to it was once eagerly abandoned.
The battle was won. As John Fanshaw sacrificed his great grievance, so she hers. As old Mumple had expiated his fault and paid his price, so she hers. As Grantley schooled his heart, so she hers. She walked with him that night in the garden while the rest made merry with games and songs and jokes within, their gay laughter echoing down to the old house where the long-parted husband and wife sat at last hand in hand. She bowed her head, and put her hands in Grantley"s, saying:
"At the first sign from you it was easy to forgive. How could I not forgive you? But it"s hard to ask to be forgiven, Grantley?"
"It was necessary that these things should come," he answered gravely.
"They have come and gone. What are they now between thee and me?"
Wisdom had made her point, and for a while now she wisely held her peace, leaving her work to another who should surely bring it to an excellent issue--to love, tempered by sorrow and self-knowledge, yet triumphant, and looking forward to new days, new births, new victories.
"The old time is done," said Grantley. "There"s a new dawn. And, Sibylla, the sunrise is golden still."
"My ever true lover, we"ll ride on the downs to-morrow," said she.
"Into the gold?" he asked, in loving banter.
"Yes," she answered bravely. "Haven"t we found the way now?"
"It may be hard to keep it."
"We shall be together--you and I. And more than you and me.
And--and--well, I intend to be unreasonable again just for this evening!
I"ll expect everything, and demand everything, and dream everything again, just for to-night--just for to-night, Grantley!"
She ended in a merry laugh, as she stood opposite him with dancing eyes.
"You"re always thorough. I was afraid you were going to be a bit too thorough with those delusions. Need we make quite so clean a sweep of them?"
"As if I ever should!" Sibylla sighed.
"Perhaps we"ve been doing one or two of them a little injustice?" he suggested.
"We"ll let them stay a little bit and see if they can clear their characters," said she. "There might be one great truth hidden among them."
"I rather fancy there is," said Grantley Imason, "and we"ll have the fellow out of his disguise."
THE END